2003 Saab 9-3 (65k miles) has flashing CEL and Code says cylinder 3 misfire. Car is running very rough and smells like gas. Curiously my 2010 Ford Flex (116k miles) had the identical thing happen to it days earlier but with cylinder 2. At shop, mechanic determined that Flex had a suck fuel injector and while he wanted to replace all six and charge $2,400, I took car elsewhere and replaced one injector and we were back in business. If the Saab, which has same symptoms, also needs an injector, should I chalk it up to a coincidence or should I be concerned that certain membership warehouse gasoline even though labeled as top tier may be causing damage to the injectors? Both cars use that gas brand most of the time but I have been told that because their gas is “Top Tier” it means that it has proper additives to help prevent engine damage. Any ideas or suggestions?
It’s tempting to blame the gas, but that “membership warehouse” has a lot of customers and moves a lot of gasoline. Anything’s possible, but it just seems unlikely. Maybe the ethanol in the fuel has some role. Did the mechanic who did the work on the Ford have any thoughts on this?
Mechanic that fixed the Ford doesn’t work on Saabs. The Saab guy when told of the coincidence first asked if we purchased gas at that certain wholesale station. He said that warehouse replaces lots of injectors. I haven’t seen much posted about that so I wanted to see if others had a different take.
That’s interesting.
Let’s not beat around the bush
You’re almost certainly talking about Costco gasoline
As you said, it is top tier fuel, not garbage
Your problems have nothing to do with filling up at Costo
As a matter of fact, filling up at Costco actually cleaned deposits off of the fuel sending units in one of my cars. It cleaned up the deposits pretty much instantly. Saved me from having to buy 2 very expensive fuel sending units . . . this car has a saddle fuel tank, hence 2 fuel sending units
Injectors sometimes develop problems, regardless of if you get the best fuel available
Why can’t it happen?
Let’s say the OP doesn’t own either of these vehicles. But by two different people who bring the vehicles in for a problem and both are found to have a bad injector.
Does that mean there’s a common link?
No. It just means the OP was unfortunate enough to own two different vehicles that had the same problem.
Tester
There’s no evidence of injector problem on the SAAB, right? That’s only a speculation. Injector problems are an uncommon report here. I think your SAAB has some other sort of problem. When a c ylinder misfires, that means the explosion didn’t take place, and so none of the gasoline is burned in the cylinder; instead it just gets pushed out the tailpipe and is the reason it smells like gasoline. More likely the SAAB has an ignition system problem, bad coil, etc.
The OP offers no evidence has a fuel injector problem. It just has a cylinder 3 misfire and he can smell gas which I would expect with a misfire. Lots of things can cause misfires , ignition, fuel (too little or too much), valves or compression.
Thank you all for the input.
Bad injector on the Saab is absolutely speculation. Speculation fueled by the proximity in time to the symptoms on both cars, the solution for the other vehicle and the mechanic’s question about fuel.
I’ll update once I find the cure for the Saab’s misfire.